Secrets
by Luthien Luinwe
Summary: It was always on the left. He couldn't help but laugh at the irony. That was the side his skull had been bashed in on. Sometimes he thought getting his head bashed in had hurt less. In which Jason suffers chronic migraine.


He wasn't okay to go out on patrol. After years of dealing with the damn things, he knew that. But he wasn't about to stay in his safehouse doing nothing while the others got to go out and enjoy the fun. Everything had a haze around it. There were two of some of the bad guys. But he needed to stay focused. He'd be damned before anyone found out.

"Careful next time," Nightwing growled at him. It was a rare sight, Nightwing back on patrol. The last Jason had heard, he'd dropped off the face of the planet for a hot minute. Jason blinked before realizing what he was talking about. He'd nearly shot him through the shoulder. He thought he had a clean shot to the guy Dick was fighting. But apparently he'd been wrong.

A pop of light blinded him for a fraction of a second, long enough for him to lose focus and nearly get hit by one of the thugs they were facing. "The hell was that?" he asked, frowning when Dick just shot him a confused expression.

"You're off your game, Hood," Dick commented, and Jason watched as he effortlessly took one of the men down. "Everything okay?"

"Fine," Jason lied, just like he always did. The last thing he needed was for the rest of the family to get involved, or worse, concerned. He'd been handling things himself for years, and he could keep doing it now. He just needed to be more careful.

* * *

"On a scale from one to ten, how bad is your pain?" Leslie asked him when he had finally shown up at her clinic. He'd been back in Gotham for months, but the damn symptoms had followed him. He had thought it was lingering side-effects from the Lazarus Pit, that they would go away. But they never did.

Her voice was screaming in his head. Why did she have to talk so damn loud? And there was a special place in hell for those fluorescent lights that were blinding him. He held up five fingers. He couldn't talk. He could barely move. It had been a miracle he'd gotten to the clinic in the first place.

But he'd had worse pain, and he could have had worse than what he was experiencing in that moment. He felt like he was underwater, and no matter how hard he tried to surface, something kept pushing him down, pinning him down. He was drowning and he couldn't come up for air.

"No fever and no injuries," Leslie said, and Jason just curled up on his side wishing he could die again.

It was always on the left. He couldn't help but laugh at the irony. That was the side his skull had been bashed in on. But it never started in his head. It started with tingling in the tips of his fingers and a ringing in his ears that wouldn't go away. And when the pain inevitable started, just like it always did, he couldn't help but think that getting his skull bashed in had hurt less.

* * *

He felt like someone had stabbed him in the stomach. And having been stabbed in the stomach, he had a pretty good idea of what that felt like. Every time he moved, he felt like he wanted to be sick. And every single step from his upstairs neighbor was amplified times ten, and even the small amount of light flickering in through his black-out curtains was too much to handle.

It took all of his energy to text Dick to ask if he could take him back to Leslie's clinic. He'd lied and said it was a stomach flu. At least some of the symptoms were similar. He needed to go to a specialist. He knew that, but he was legally dead and he couldn't.

Dick had shown up an hour later and had talked the entire way to the clinic. Jason wanted to cover his ears, to smash them shut and drown out the noise because God, why did Dick always have to shout when he talked? But just sitting in the car was taking up all of his spare energy, and his sunglasses weren't keeping enough of the blinding light out, and he felt like someone was forcing an icepick through his eye at an agonizingly slow pace.

Dick had to help him out of the car. "On a scale from one to ten, how bad is your pain?" Why did they always have to ask that? He held up six fingers because even though he thought he was dying and he could barely talk, if someone shot him he'd hurt worse.

"Jason, how long as this been going on?" Leslie asked, and Jason knew she was trying to keep her voice soft, and she had been nice enough to dim the lights when he'd asked, but it still seemed too damn loud.

"Since I came back," he answered.

* * *

"Jason!" Roy shouted, and Jason couldn't figure out why until he turned and saw an arrow pierce through the shoulder of a man who had been dangerously close to stabbing him in the side. His peripheral vision had been screwy for days, but he didn't want to abandon Kori and Roy again. Lately it seemed like all he did was flake on them.

"Thanks, man," Jason called and reloaded his handgun. "Owe you." He quickly surveyed the area, not wanting another unpleasant surprise before running over to the rest of his team.

"Big time," Roy nocked another arrow and sent it flying toward another of their attackers. "Third time this week I've saved your sorry ass."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Jason replied and aimed his gun, only for Roy to shove his arm back down. "The hell, man?"

"Yeah, you're not shooting anything when you're shaking like that," Roy answered and loosed another arrow. Jason blinked and glanced down. Sure enough, his hand was shaking. How had he not even noticed that?

* * *

He had thought he still had a few hours before the inevitable headache set in. He had sneaked into the Batcave to do some research. One minute he had been fine, and the next he had his head on the cool, glass table, arms wrapped around his head trying to block out as much of the light as possible.

He groaned when he heard footsteps thudding down the stairs. Did they belong to a giant? Surely they must have. "Jason?" he heard Bruce's voice. Because of course he would pick the worst possible moment to find Jason where he wasn't supposed to be. "What's wrong?" Jason didn't even glance over him. He muttered something incomprehensible and moved his arms closer to his eyes.

He heard a chair being pulled up beside him, the screech of the wheels against the concrete floor magnified twenty-fold. He was sweating and cold at the same time. Bruce had asked him something again, but Jason hadn't understood it. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't form in his mouth.

"On a scale from one to ten, how bad is the pain?" Leslie asked, and Jason held up eight fingers. Bruce had forced him into the Batmobile and driven him across town, and Jason hadn't even had the energy to sit and fight with him about it. Bruce had wanted to come back with him, but Leslie had insisted he keep outside. "Are you familiar with migraines?"

"It's not a fucking headache!" Jason had snapped, instantly regretting the decision when the words echoed around in his head, amplified more than he wanted them to be.

"Jason," she put a hand on his shoulder. "They aren't just headaches."

* * *

He didn't want to tell Bruce. He had lied and said he'd taken a hit to the head the night before while patrolling with the Outlaws, and that he'd be fine in a few days. But he needed someone to know so they could help explain everything to him. And so he had, however reluctantly, gone to talk to Dick.

"It makes sense," the first Robin commented and sat up on his counter. "Honestly I'm surprised you don't have more head trauma."

"Yeah, you and me both," Jason muttered and stirred his teaspoon around in his coffee mug just to have something to do with his hands. "It would've been better if I'd stayed dead."

"Don't say that," Dick spoke, and for once Jason didn't think he was saying it just to make Jason feel better. "You need to tell B."

Jason shook his head and slammed the coffee mug down on the cheap kitchen table. "I'm not telling him," he said through gritted teeth. The absolute last thing he needed was for Bruce to have something else to lord over him. He was already unstable. He didn't need broken added to that list.

But he also knew Dick was right. He could be a danger to a mission, to himself, and to the rest of the family, especially if an attack happened mid-patrol or mid-brawl. "Can I tell him, then?"

And Jason nodded without saying anything, glad that he didn't have to. Glad that he had someone who understood.


End file.
